SmittyJonz
somebody shut me the fark up.
Hunsaker Drum.......or insulated cabinet smoker.
In a few months Academy will have a Small (probally 3 grate) Old Country Insulated Gravity Fed in the $1200 neighborhood.....:heh:
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Buying New Smoker - Need Advice!
- Thread starter AKMIMNAK
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Hunsaker Drum.......or insulated cabinet smoker.
In a few months Academy will have a Small (probally 3 grate) Old Country Insulated Gravity Fed in the $1200 neighborhood.....:heh:
AKMIMNAK
is one Smokin' Farker
Alot of you have mentioned insulated vertical gravity fed smokers. I've never looked into these before. They look like a pretty cool idea, but after looking at them, here's my question: If I'm going to spend that kind of money, why not get an Ole Hickory UltraQue/CTO that also has built in temp control and convection? Some of these vertical units are like 4-grand and have neither! Wowzers.
SmittyJonz
somebody shut me the fark up.
there is Insulated cabinet smokers and then Insulated gravity fed. Start about $1000 up to $4-5K. Humphreys and Backwoods have both put out a Small insulated cabinet (not gravity fed) for under $1000.......
https://humphreysbbq.myshopify.com/pages/the-weekender
https://shop.backwoods-smoker.com/collections/frontpage/products/chubby-3400
https://shop.backwoods-smoker.com/collections/frontpage/products/chubby
T&K Small is the cheapest Gravity Fed I know of ( till Old Country's comes out)
https://www.stlbbqstore.com/t-k-gravity-feed-small/
Rusty Kettle
Babbling Farker
None of the ones I mentioned are gravity fed. The 270 smoker is convection/reverse flow. Not a gravity fed smoker. They hang their hat on not needing a temp controller. Big reason I bought mine is no electronics.
1500 can go pretty far with Backwoods. The G2 Chubby is a good option. I like the Chubby 3400 at 799.00 including shipping. Check them out.
Now being that you have kids like me. I got a 2 year old and 4 year old. Consider warm up time on cabinets about an hour. 45 mins to hit temp and 15 mins to settle in and have a solid fire once temp hits. Pellet grills 10 mins. Cabinets only work when you have a day off. Pellet grills all week. Flavor is better on a cabinet imo but a pellet grill gets more cook time.
Do you have time for warm up and getting up early morning to build a fire? Not hard but time consuming. Hurry when you build a fire and it won't be stable. I plan a minimum 1 hour. Build fire, season and inject your meat. Let the smoker settle into temp. Put meat on and you might have to make adjustments for fine tuning over an hour. Once thats done it will run solid all day long.
kenrobin
Knows what a fatty is.
Also, Yoder owns All Things BBQ so you’d actually be buying direct from Yoder.
Dweverett
is One Chatty Farker
Agree with the comments on differences in startup time. Once things are at temp and the smoke has cleared an insulated cabinet or ceramic is pretty much hands off even in very cold weather. There is a meaningful difference in the time to get there. You need to be paying attention a bit during that hour too so you can dial in the temp. In the pellet you don’t even need to wait for it to preheat if you don’t want to. Less time cleaning things out from the prior cook as well. Only open up my Rectec every half dozen cooks or so.
The charcoal solutions aren’t massive amounts of work but the pellets are so easy you will probably use it a bit more given your time commitments.
If you go that route, do some research on the options. Lots of players out there now at very different price points. Given the relatively limited volume you are looking for you could try one out for a lot less than your budget and see how it works for you.
OklaDustDevil
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If you want to go the hands-on, full smoke flavour route but worry about controlling an offset, you should check out the Karubecue. The Amazingribs site has an excellent review and if you google the name, Karubecue has a great site that describes the science and engineering behind the design. A gentleman in a Texas invented it and still makes them in his garage. Essentially he analyzed the science of a great fire and great smoke and engineered a fool-proof way to deliver that every time. It costs just under $1500 delivered but does require that you tend the fire and add wood every 30-45 min.
If you want the hands-off, I'm tied up with the kids, set it and forget it convenience of a pellet smoker, I would suggest you check out the Mak 1-star. I bought one last Thanksgiving because I grew tired of the all-night cooks on my stick-burners. I love it and am getting excellent smoke flavour. It is slightly over your price range at $1700 delivered but the reason I like it so much is the programmable controller. I can program it to cook really low, 180-200, for 3-4 hours to maximize smoke (pellets smoke less the higher temp you burn them), then kick up to my regular cooking temp of 235-250 until the attached meat probe hits the internal meat temp I set, then drop back to 200 to hold until I wake up and get out there in the morning. Those changes, and any others I want, all happen automatically. That's about as set it and forget it as you find.
If I hadn't bought the Mak, I would have bought the Yoder, as I believe it's also an excellent choice. But I concluded the Mak controller was better and read about paint issues with the Yoder.
I also examined many of the insulated and gravity fed smokers as well. I'm not familiar with them but there are many excellent choices in your price range as many above have pointed out.
Good luck -- there's nothin better than shoppin for a new smoker!!!
If you want the hands-off, I'm tied up with the kids, set it and forget it convenience of a pellet smoker, I would suggest you check out the Mak 1-star. I bought one last Thanksgiving because I grew tired of the all-night cooks on my stick-burners. I love it and am getting excellent smoke flavour. It is slightly over your price range at $1700 delivered but the reason I like it so much is the programmable controller. I can program it to cook really low, 180-200, for 3-4 hours to maximize smoke (pellets smoke less the higher temp you burn them), then kick up to my regular cooking temp of 235-250 until the attached meat probe hits the internal meat temp I set, then drop back to 200 to hold until I wake up and get out there in the morning. Those changes, and any others I want, all happen automatically. That's about as set it and forget it as you find.
If I hadn't bought the Mak, I would have bought the Yoder, as I believe it's also an excellent choice. But I concluded the Mak controller was better and read about paint issues with the Yoder.
I also examined many of the insulated and gravity fed smokers as well. I'm not familiar with them but there are many excellent choices in your price range as many above have pointed out.
Good luck -- there's nothin better than shoppin for a new smoker!!!
AKMIMNAK
is one Smokin' Farker
Very helpful, thank you!
AKMIMNAK
is one Smokin' Farker
I've never even looked into cabinet smokers before, hence my ignorance on the gravity fed thing. These are all helpful thoughts. I appreciate it. Now I have to consolidate all this new knowledge and try to make a good choice
AKMIMNAK
is one Smokin' Farker
I will check out both options. Thank you for taking the time! I do appreciate it. And, yes. I'm having fun shopping.....but also need to start condensing this info at some point and choose!
PnkPanther
is Blowin Smoke!
My next addition will be whitewater drum and weber 26. The board here is hooked on hunsaker, whitewater are made in MN and I like supporting MN business......
FYI my good one did fine into 20s, colder than that I cooked indoors. Drums also seem do well, you'll however go through bit more charcoal
But great advice on here about insulated cabinet, they gave me same and I ignored them.
FYI my good one did fine into 20s, colder than that I cooked indoors. Drums also seem do well, you'll however go through bit more charcoal
But great advice on here about insulated cabinet, they gave me same and I ignored them.
kenrobin
Knows what a fatty is.
I also have a MAK 1 Star pellet smoker. It is extremely easy to use & it has a great controller. After around 2 years of service, I had to remove the auger & the controller to diagnose a problem that I was having maintaining the temperature set point. MAK’s customer service was very responsive via email & they upgraded the firmware on my controller after I shipped it to them. In the end, everything worked out & my MAK is humming again but I have to admit that I spent far more time than I ever wanted opening the guts of the machine up & removing/re-installing parts.
For this reason, I removed the Karubecue from my consideration for a new stick burner because of its dependence on electrical parts. I don’t want another cooker that may require extensive self-repair. I studied stick burners by Yoder, Lang & Lone Star Grillz eventually settling on LSG. I’m anxiously waiting for it to be built.
AKMIMNAK
is one Smokin' Farker
I looked up Hunsaker (Missouri) and Whitewater (Ohio) and neither says it's made in MN. Did I misunderstand?
Your feedback in this post is very timely.....I'm honestly so overwhelmed by the options I was beginning to think about calling it off and buying a 26" Weber and just tricking the thing out. And waiting three years until I am done with school to buy a nicer rig, and take it with me when I move on. Of all the things I've ever smoked on, my 22" Weber has been the most reliable and the thing I've figured out best. I just hate the capacity.
PnkPanther
is Blowin Smoke!
I sent you a PM. You won't find much on them, they're just local MN drum company. You can order one through Quetopia or them direct. I've seen them in person and they're very well built drums. You can get one new and weber 26 for under about a grand
if you want to save money, Weber 26 and SNS will set you back under 500 and do great job.
